Archive for WTJU

On Monday evening, about 200 or so community members, DJs past and present, and various supporters flooded a town hall meeting held by UVa’s Department of Public Affairs (now in charge of TJU) to let ’em have an earful of what it means to love something as thoroughly as Charlottesville loves WTJU.

Carol Wood, head of Public Affairs for UVa, got up and assured us that our voices were important and the turn out was impressive. Next – looking like a hapless villain sent down from central casting – came Burr Beard, the new WTJU station manager. After admitting he was from out of town and basically had no clue what a WTJU was, he stammered something along the lines of, “gee guys, gosh, I still think an all-Americana station would work in this market, shucks.” He damn near got himself laughed out of there. But the announcers and those assembled were respectful, knowing full well they need a qualified station manager who is ready to go to bat for them. Continue reading →

Burr Beard, the man brought in to revive WTJU from its slump, is proposing turning major blocks of programming to “Americana” or “Roots” – generally, folk, blues, country and country rock – making that the new “station identity.” The notion sickens me so badly I couldn’t even make it through the proposal.

Ok, I’m all for banjos and bluegrass and “Wagon Wheel,” and ironic tattoos and Pabst Blue Ribbon, but enough already! This Americana thing is not the end-all-be-all. (Whatever happened to rock and roll?) It’s already been an excruciating decade of weekend-redneck toothless hipsters forming Hank Sr. tribute bands. I’M OVER IT. Moving to Brooklyn, taking up banjo and heroin and getting a tattoo of bacon does not make you an artist. ENOUGH! Continue reading →

“I LOVE RADIO! I have learned of more incredible music listening to WTJU 91.1FM – local multi-format UVa radio – in my umpteen years in Charlottesville than anywhere else. Something about broadcast makes music seem more alive, and the djs have always been so deliciously anarchic. Heaven is a kickass TJU rock show.”

That’s verbatim from my personal Myspace page under “Music.” (Copied and pasted, actually.) I wrote that in 2005 or whenever I set that thing up. (Oh Myspace, so much promise, and then… Murdoch. Blech.)

At that time, I had been listening to WTJU for about twenty years. The station had gone through some mostly cosmetic changes, but one beautiful, crucial thing remained constant: when a DJ was on his game, and you were in the mood: MAGIC. Continue reading →

Charlton Heston is dead. Did anyone get his gun?

"The F.C.C. is only giving lip service to the 1st Amendment and the U.S. Constitution, because it is the servant of a government in which capitalism masquerades as democracy." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Do Republicans really eat their young?

"(the clergy) believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson

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Gaudiness is next to godliness, phonetically speaking.

"The music industry is a cruel and shallow money-trench. A long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. There is also a negative side.” - Hunter S. Thompson

Spirituality without self-awareness ain’t worth a puddle of piss.

“As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.” — George Washington

"Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits--a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage."
-Hunter S. Thompson